Chiropractic SEO Marketing Explained
When it comes to marketing your practice, the whole point is visibility. But you don't want vague, scattered visibility. Sure, any visibility is a positive. But ideally, you want highly targeted and laser focused visibility where it will have the most impact. Especially if you're investing money into marketing for the future of your business. That's where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes into play. It's a way to put yourself and your practice in front of the right people at exactly the right time.
What is the right place at the right time?
There has never in history been a better opportunity to have your business show up in such a precise and lucrative placement than what is now offered by online search engines. The best part is, you don't have to buy expensive real estate in the best location in town. You don't need expensive television or radio commercials or billboards. All you need is a decent website and a solid strategy to turn that website into infinitely valuable "virtual real estate."
When people need something today, very often their first action is online search. The majority of those searches are done on Google, so we'll use that as the standard moving forward on this page. If you position your virtual real estate correctly, Google will serve your business listing and website up to the people who need you, exactly when they need you. That is the definition of right place at the right time.
The point here is, when people in your local area search for a chiropractor, you want to be the first thing they see in the search results. This means you want your business to show up in 2 specific placements on page 1 of the Google search results when people use search terms such as "chiropractor + (your city)" or "chiropractor near me."
The first of those 2 places is the Google Business Profiles at the top of the search results page, sometimes referred to as the "map pack". Only the top 3 businesses (as determined by Google) will show up here. This section of the page will gather upwards of 40% of the search traffic or clicks. Some will even call your office directly from the business listing without ever visiting your website. Being listed in the top 3 here can be absolutely game changing for the continued growth of your practice.
The second place you want your business to show up is in one of the first 3 spots in the organic web listings below the business profiles, ideally in the 1st or 2nd position. Showing up here will capture anywhere from 10% to 28% of the clicks from search traffic, depending on the positioning. Being in the 1st or 2nd position alone here will reap great results. However, if you combine that with also being listed in the top 3 business profiles, that's called domination. It will be hard for the competition to keep up when you accomplish this.
Example: The image below shows the top 3 Google Business Profile listings and the top 2 organic web results for the search term "Chiropractor Miami Florida," both outlined in the green boxes.
Reach More New Chiropractic Patients The Smart Way With SEO
Now that we understand where you need to be, we'll discuss how to get there. Let's cover what goes into getting a website and business profile to rank at the top of the search results.
First, you need targeted keywords. For a chiropractor, the main targeted keywords would normally be "chiropractor + (your city)" or "chiropractor near me," as mentioned above. However, if you focus heavily on "chiropractor + your city," ranking for "chiropractor near me" should ultimately take care of itself. Google will know where your practice is located and to which people they should display your listing.
A Dive Into The Specifics
SEO results are based around three main factors, which are:
Technical Optimization
On-Page Optimization
Off-Page Optimization
We'll take a deeper look at all three of these below.
Technical Optimization
Technical optimization consists of basic standards that Google expects today for websites to provide users with a pleasing and safe experience. There are many variables to consider, but here are the most basic for local business websites:
Speed and performance - A website should load quickly, be pleasing to the eye, and easy to navigate for the user.
Mobile friendliness - Much of the search traffic today occurs on mobile devices, so you must have a mobile responsive website.
Security - Security has become more of a priority these days. Your website must load securely with a valid SSL certificate installed (which means it will load under "https" rather than "http").
On-Page Optimization
On-page Optimization is basically setting up the inner workings of your website so that Google knows exactly what it's about and who they should show it to. Here is a basic list of things that will have an impact on search rankings:
Meta tags & descriptions - This is the text snippet that people see when your website is listed in the search results. It should be clearly defined around the keywords for which you want to rank.
Headings & Subheadings (H1, H2, H3, etc.) - Google will prioritize your information by how well you structure your headings and subheadings and what keywords they contain.
URL structure and title tags - All of your pages should be designed with specific intent, such as ranking for a keyword, conversion, or informative content. The key here is to have your targeted keywords included in your URL and title, with variations of the keyword included in the headings and subheadings mentioned above.
Internal linking - Use your pages to link to each other where it is relevant. This helps with ease of navigation and looks good to Google.
Schema Markup - Schema, or structured data, is the language (code) search engines use to categorize and characterize the content on your web pages.
Off-Page Optimization
Off Page optimization is what really puts your SEO efforts into overdrive. This is what sends signals to Google to help them determine how relevant your website is compared to the competition. Here are the basic elements that matter the most:
Citations - Submitting your information to multiple directories across the web, including Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP). This is a big factor in helping to boost your GBP ranking.
Link building - "Backlinks," or links from other websites across the web pointing back to your website. Think of each backlink like a popularity vote, or a vote of confidence in the eyes of Google. The more popular the site linking to yours, the more powerful it is in boosting your website rankings. However, relevance is becoming increasingly more important. An example of a "relevant" link for a chiropractic website would be from another site about chiropractic or a site about your city.
Brand mentions & signals - The more your brand is mentioned across the web, the more relevant you become. A popular way to increase brand mentions is through press releases which are basically simple announcements about your practice and services.
Reputation & Reviews - Get as many 5 star Google reviews as you can and respond to each of them. The more reviews, the better the reputation, the more relevant you become. Less reviews and bad reviews will tarnish your reputation and hurt your relevance in the eyes of Google.
The Benefits Of SEO For Your Practice
There are tons of stats thrown around the web about what SEO can produce for your practice. But we have grown a practice of our own with this process, which means we have real data and feedback from Google each and every month.
In our experience, we see that 1.5% to upwards of 2% of the local population size is searching for chiropractic care in our area each and every month. If your website is ranked well and displayed in the top of the search results, you might expect to capture roughly 20% to 40% of the clicks and get prospective new patient leads to your website. The conversion rate of leads to new patients will obviously be lower than that, because not everybody who visits your site will book an appointment. That will depend on your reputation and how well your website converts visitors into patients.
Here is a simplified breakdown of possible numbers:
| 100,000 | 1500-2000 | 300-800 |
| 75,000 | 1125-1500 | 225-600 |
| 50,000 | 750-1000 | 150-400 |
| 25,000 | 375-500 | 75-200 |
Apply these statistics to the population size of your own city or town and see what kind of numbers you come up with. What would it be worth to you to appear directly in front of potentially hundreds of perfectly targeted new patient prospects each month?
Now consider that each new patient you bring in will build onto your reputation, as well as refer new patients, which eventually turns into exponential growth. This is why we consider a solid SEO focus to be monumental to the long term growth of any practice.
What Are Your Options For SEO Marketing?
If SEO seems like a good route for you to build your practice, you have two options.
Take The DIY Approach
You can take on a steep learning curve and start to implement this process yourself. You will need to know how to work on your website, do the optimizations, work on your Google Business Profile, go get relevant backlinks, publish relevant content, publish and distribute press releases, and go get citations published, etc, etc, etc.
You could figure all of this out by searching endlessly online, watching hours upon hours of YouTube content, or taking a paid course. But, to be completely honest, this will take a while to learn. And quite frankly, the best resources are not publicly available. They are private services in the background, reserved for small groups of SEO specialists and agencies behind the scenes. We know this because we've been doing it for so long and we are a part of many private groups behind the scenes.
Hire a Chiropractor SEO Agency
Your other option is to hire a professional to do it for you. Completely hands off. You simply invest in the future of your business and let somebody else do the heavy lifting, saving you lots of time and money and headaches and mistakes.
If you want to learn about how we can help you, click on the button below now!